


Out of Arm's Reach

by ZombieBabs



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe, Awkward first meeting, Gen, Humor, Shippy Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:31:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7409497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh my God,” she says again, because this cannot be happening. She’s just hit a man. A man with glasses, for Christ’s sake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Arm's Reach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [E_Salvatore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/E_Salvatore/gifts).



> Tumblr prompt: 
> 
> Awful first meeting: I accidentally punched you in the face when I was too over-excited about something.

“Oh my God,” she says, hand over her mouth. Her eyes are wide as she stares at the man currently sprawled at her feet. 

He groans and sits up more fully, clutching at his face where she’d punched him. 

“Oh my God,” she says again, because this cannot be happening. She’s just hit a man. A man wearing glasses, for Christ’s sake. 

Glasses that slide off of the man’s face in two broken pieces.

 _Fuck._ She’s going to hell. She’s going to hell because she’d finally convinced Dr. Richard Strand to sit down for an interview, after _eleven_ calls, and in her excitement she’d managed to _punch_ a man in _glasses_. “Oh my God,” she says once more, for good measure.

“If you’re finished,” the man says, from the floor. His eyes are the prettiest blue she’s ever seen, even if they are currently narrowed at her in annoyance. 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you and--I’m so, so sorry.” She crosses over to him to kneel down by his side, her hands hovering just over his. “Are you okay? Can I see?”

“I’m fine.” He pulls bloodstained fingers away from his face. Bright red blood drips from a cut across the bridge of his nose where the skin must have split when she’d broken his glasses. Alex winces, but the man pays her no mind. “There is a handkerchief in the pocket of my jacket.”

Alex looks at him for a long moment before she realizes that he means for her to hand it to him. She plucks it out of his suit jacket, touching him as little as possible, afraid of causing even more damage. 

He doesn’t snatch it from her hands, like she expects, but gently tugs it out of her two-fingered grasp and dabs at his face with the square of cloth, catching most of what had been dripping down his nose and over his mouth to his chin. He still looks like a CW vampire after a snack when he finds the injury and presses the cloth over it, to stop the bleeding.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Alex asks, still hovering in case he keels over. What if she’s broken something? Other than his glasses. Christ, she’s a disaster. “You don’t need to go to the hospital?” 

“That won’t be necessary.” The man moves to stand and Alex does what she can to help him up. She hadn’t realized just how tall he is, standing well over six feet. It’s a wonder at all how she’d managed to reach his face with her fist.

“There is blood all over your face,” she tells him, unable to keep her nervous babble from spilling over. “You look a little bit like you belong at a crime scene.”

“You assaulted me.” The man says. “This technically _is_ a crime scene.”

Alex’s face heats up, shame running hot through her veins. “Have I told you how sorry I am? Because I’m _really_ sorry. Will you at least let me clean you up? Please?”

He looks down at her for a long time, seconds stretching on in agonizing quiet before he nods, still holding the handkerchief to his face. “There’s a first aid kit in my office.”

He takes a step only to stop suddenly at the distinct sound of glass crunching under his foot. He steps back, revealing one half of his destroyed glasses. If there had ever been hope for repair, mangled things were now beyond that. The man sighs, crouching down to pick up shattered glass and plastic, balling the pieces up into his bloody handkerchief. 

“Follow me,” he says, once every piece has been collected. He doesn’t wait for her when he starts walking.

His legs are much longer than hers and it leaves her almost breathless trying to keep up with him. He leads her to an elevator, where the door mercifully slides open, ready and waiting. They step in and the man presses the button for a floor near the top of the building. Once the elevator car starts moving, he leans back against the wall and closes his eyes.

“At least the bleeding has stopped,” Alex says.

The man makes a noncommittal hum, but doesn’t look at her. Alex figures she wouldn’t be in the mood to chat either, if she had just been punched in the face by a stranger. She tries not to take it personally.

The elevator comes to a stop and the man leads her down another hallway, just as quiet as the rest of the building. Alex wonders if the office is actually closed. She hasn’t seen another soul since the receptionist had lent her a guest badge in the lobby and buzzed her into the building proper. But then, the man walks by an alcove with a desk and a young woman sitting behind it. 

“Hold all calls for the time being,” the man says.

“Got it.” The young woman does a double take when she glances up at the man. To her credit, she calmly sits back in her chair and says, “Nice look. Did you join a fight club while you were gone?”

The man shakes his head and walks into what Alex assumes is his office. Alex turns to the young woman and offers, “If he had, it’s not like he could tell you about it.”

The young woman laughs. “True. Go on in, it looks like he’s expecting you.”

“Oh. Right. It was nice meeting you--”

“Ruby Carver,” the woman says. The name sound familiar, but Alex can’t immediately place it.

Alex holds out her hand and they shake as she says, “Alex Reagan.”

Ruby gives her an inquisitive look, opening her mouth to say something. She seems to think better of it and turns back to her computer to resume typing, hair falling over one eye. 

Alex leaves her to her work.

The man’s office is huge, with bookshelves lining the walls. The man sits at a desk, a large window overlooking the streets of Chicago behind him. “I apologize for Ruby. She thinks she’s funny,” he says, as Alex looks around.

Alex smiles. “I thought it was accurate.”

The man huffs and ducks his head. “I thought you said I looked like a crime scene.”

“No, I said you looked like you _belonged_ at a crime scene. There’s a difference.”

The man huffs again, a soft exhalation that Alex realizes is laughter. “I see.”

He bends over to open a drawer in his desk, pulling out a first aid kit. 

The first thing Alex does is tear open a cleansing wipe and hand it to him, explaining, “For your hands.”

Alex tears open another cleansing wipe and, after waiting for a nod from the man in front of her, begins to wipe the blood from his face. 

“It looks worse than it really is,” Alex says, once there is no less than three cleansing wipes in the wastebasket by his desk. “You’ll probably have some bruising, but the cut isn’t that bad.”

“Thank you. For cleaning me up.”

“Don’t thank me, it was my fault,” Alex says. “I’m just glad I didn’t do anything to permanently scar such a handsome face.”

That startles another laugh out of him, drawing out a smile that can only be described as ‘wry.’ In the short time she’s known this man, she thinks it suits him.

“So, you do smile,” she says. “I was beginning to wonder.”

“Occasionally,” he says, amusement clear in his eyes. 

“It’s a much better look than crime scene, Mr.--” Alex stops, realizing that they still haven’t introduced one another.

“Doctor,” the man corrects, opening another drawer. He takes out another pair of glasses from a case and settles them on his face, careful of his injury. “Dr. Richard Strand.”

Alex steps back, feeling like she’d just been struck. But instead of her face, she feels like she must have been punched right in the gut, her breath knocked out of her.

She’d punched the very man she had been so excited to interview earlier. She had _punched_ him and _destroyed_ his glasses and made him _bleed_. And she had called him handsome. To his face. She wonders if it would be possible to convince Nic to leave Dr. Strand out of the podcast entirely. There has to be other skeptics out there. Ones that she hasn’t thoroughly embarrassed herself in front of.

“Are you alright?”

Alex shakes her head, not trusting herself to speak.

Strand presses a button on the phone on his desk. “Ruby, could you bring Ms. Reagan a glass of water?”

He doesn’t wait for Ruby to answer. He turns toward Alex and gestures to one of the chairs in front of his desk. 

Alex falls into one. “You know who I am?”

“I heard you introduce yourself to my assistant. When I approved an interview, I did not think to expect you so soon.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex says. “I thought it would be cool to do a little research of the building, learn how the Institute works, get some sound clips from people who work here, that sort of thing. I got the call confirming my appointment with you and--you caught me while I was still celebrating. In the hallway. Where I thought no one could see me.” 

Alex hardly notices Ruby enter and leave a glass and a bottle of water on the desk. She’s too busy feeling mortified.

“Is that so?” Dr. Strand says. His stupid, handsome face is inscrutable now. Alex thinks he may be taking entirely too much pleasure in her pain.

“It’s so,” she says. And then, “Are you going to cancel? Because I punched you in the face? I’m still _really_ sorry that I punched you in the face.”

“I could use some coffee,” he says, instead of answering her question. “There is a shop not far from here. I have a free moment now, if you’d like to explain what, exactly, a podcast is.”

Alex’s mouth drops open and she has to force herself to close it. “What? Seriously? You aren’t going to cancel?”

“I had not planned on it. If you are having second thoughts--”

“No!” Alex says, much too fast. She takes a breath, trying to steady herself. “I mean, no. I would love to get coffee with you.”

“Very well. I just ask that you keep any and all ‘celebrations’ out of arm’s reach.”

Alex laughs. “I can do that.”


End file.
